


some intangible thread

by vexedcer



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: (light and hypothetical), Angst, Bisexual Peggy Carter, Bisexual Steve Rogers, Coming Out, Grief/Mourning, Multi, Off-screen Character Death, Period-Typical Homophobia, cos no one rlly talks about that ever ???, i basically rewrote the post-bucky's "death" bar scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-03
Updated: 2016-11-03
Packaged: 2018-08-28 21:11:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8463091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vexedcer/pseuds/vexedcer
Summary: It’s when she’s stepping through the rubble of the bombed out building that she realises she has no idea what she’s going to say to him. (Or; the bombed-out bar scene rewritten.)





	

**Author's Note:**

> ive mainly written this, bc i feel like collectively as writers we've kinda... brushed over the scene in the bar after bucky falls from the train? very seldom would i find something related to this scene in fanworks so i thought "hey why not do it urself and also make it even gayer AND confirm my two faves r bi?"
> 
> enjoy!!

It’s when she’s stepping through the rubble of the bombed out building that she realises she has no idea what she’s going to say to him. 

The streets had been empty as she picked her way through the shambled masonry and shattered glass, eerily silent and painfully bleak. She was never a Londoner, never lived here nor worked here for long. She’s only ever been a transient entity in this city but - it still hurts to see her homeland so ruined.

_ “The Blackout is still in effect in the London area,” _ the sirens distantly shout, “ _ Please wait for the all clear.”  _ She looks around herself, wrings her hands together while taking in the destruction. 

Steve is sitting, slumped over the table by the bar with an empty glass and a bottle. The whole night is lit by the few spared street lamps outside. It makes all the colours dull where it doesn’t quite reach them; the brilliant gold of his hair, the matching emblems on his uniform, his tie, are all lost to the night. His shoulders are tense, and she can’t see his face but would bet anything that it is not the put-together Captain everyone outside of her, the Howlies and - that everyone else knows.

He looks up at her and - she was right. For a split second his face is a well of devastating grief and loss, before he pulls up a mask with slightly less turmoil and heartbreak on it.

“Dr. Erskine said that,” he starts. His voice is hoarse, like he hasn’t spoken in hours or like he’s screamed himself raw. She wonders which it was as he starts to pour the dimmed amber liquid into his glass. “The serum wouldn’t just affect my muscles, it would effect my cells.” 

She takes her gloves off and says nothing.

“Create a protective system of regeneration and healing, which means, uhm -” He pauses, stares into the bottom of his glass and admits, “I can’t get drunk,” like the idea is physically hurting him -

(She supposes it might be; he turned to the bottle to forget, but when the bottle is about as strong as water, the memories are still vivid.)

\- “Did you know that?”

“Your metabolism burns four times faster than the average person,” she tells him. Hiding behind the science is easier than talking about why they’re sitting in a wreck of a building, the structural integrity of which is somewhat questionable, simpler to commit herself to the scientific facts she’s sure of than the emotional ones she doesn’t know how to tackle.

She pulls up a chair. “He thought it could be one of the side-effects.”

Pause.

“It wasn’t you fault,” she blurts out. She’s never been much good at emotions, not like the girls at Bletchley Park seemed to whip comforting words put like handkerchiefs from sleeves.

“Did you read the report?”

“Yes.”

He scoffs, more towards himself then her. “Then you know that’s not true.”

“You did everything you could,” she assures him, but she knows he still won’t believe her. He stares down at the scuffed table top, face much older than how he should look, but everyone in the war looks like that; old, worn, ragged even while wearing pristine, pressed formal uniforms. The war has aged them all.

His jaw is working like there’s something he’s trying not to say something.

“Did you believe in your friend?” she asks, and  _ your friend _ rolls off her tongue and over her teeth like the laugh they shared over whiskey a fortnight ago, in a bar like this, only it was black with people, alcohol plentiful and a merry spirit in spite of - well, in spite of the world and it’s problems. It seems improper for her to have  _ his  _ name in her mouth in this moment. “Did you respect him?”

Steve says nothing, but Peggy knows the deep fissure of not only respect but care and trust and hope and sheer, unadulterated love Steve had for the sergeant.

“Then stop blaming yourself. Allow Barnes -” and it slips out anyways, but she has the feeling Steve won’t listen to her if she doesn’t say it, “- the dignity of his choice.”

“He damn well must have thought you were worth it.”

He says nothing.

“You loved him,” she states and Steve startles but doesn’t deny it, just looks away across the debris filled room, lips pressed firm. “We loved him too. He was our brother, but he was your -” she stops. Steve is now looking at her with pain filled eyes. “He was your ‘guy’.”

Steve sniffs. Picks up his glass and knocks it back in one go, wincing at the burn but his eyes remain sober. “If you know then I guess I’ll be getting a blue ticket outta here any day now,” he mumbles bitterly under his breath.

“Well, it would be rather hypocritical of me to report anything to the higher-ups.” When Steve looks at her in question, she admits, a confident face paired with a quirked brow but also with a rapidly beating heart, “It appears we’re in the same boat, Captain.”

Comprehension dawns on his face. “Oh,” is all he says. He blusters for a moment, “Do you, uhm - uh, have a girl back home?”

“I was engaged to be married. Lieutenant Fred Wells.”

Steve watches her, and she feels that distracting him right now is probably right, as she suspects that not all the broken furniture of the area was a casualty of the bombs.

“What happened?” 

“I joined the army.”

Steve falls quiet. He ponders his glass in a way that’s not about the glass. She feels like she would also benefit from a stiff drink; whiskey, scotch, bourbon - something that will burn on the way down and make her wince. When she glances around, though, she sees that Steve has taken the only bottle to be left unshattered in the blast.

“Who else knows?” His voice is a quiet rumble into an even quieter night.

Peggy pauses, considers how to answer. “The Commandos know, Howard and myself -” She halts, before barreling forward, “And I’m rather positive that Colonel Philips has turned a purposeful blind eye to it.”

Steve’s jaw works in the dim light cast by the moon coming through the rafters overhead. Steve, who she’s noticed has become very schooled in his emotions throughout the war, is visibly fighting back something from his face.

“Steve,” she says softly, in contrast to the jagged wounds of the day and the splintered remains of the room. She places a hand over his own calloused one. “Steve, it doesn’t matter. We need you here, fighting this war. Who you love isn’t a reflection of who you are.”

She needs to say these things, but she feels like she’s fighting a losing battle. The Steve she’s come to love, in spite of his loyalties lying elsewhere, is the Steve that Barnes brought forward. Even when absent, Barnes somehow managed to affect Steve’s very being - like they were linked together by some intangible thread of fate.

Steve and Barnes were always made to exist on the same plane, within the same vibration; but now their tandem is disturbed and nothing can fix that. The Steve before her is not that Steve, Bucky’s Steve, and will never be that Steve again, because Bucky is gone. 

“I’m going after Schmidt,” he tells her, his eyes focused on the table in front of him. “I’m not gonna stop until all of Hydra is dead or captured.”

_ “I don’t wanna hurt anyone,”  _ a voice that sounds a lot like Steve’s says in the back of her head, even though she never heard these words with her own ears. Peggy remembers reading Erskine’s papers, his justifications for why, little Steve Rogers with asthma and  anemia and a mountain of other things, was the man to help win this horrific war.  _ “I don’t like bullies, I don’t care where they’re from.” _

She wonders were that man went, and when the one in front of her arrived. Like she knows, the war has changed them all. The wounds from this hell are not shallow by any means.

“You won’t be alone.” He won’t.

**Author's Note:**

> A few things;
> 
> blue ticket (or a blue discharge) - a discharge that is neither honourable or dishonourable; usually used against queer folk and poc's (particularly African Americans) and was discontinued in 1947. I rec reading up on it, it was deeply fascinating to me.
> 
> I used a lot of Peggy's canon presented in Agent Carter, so if it seems like I'm pulling random info out of my ass, i promise I'm not. It's alllll there.


End file.
